Ryan Lochte robbery story translator opens up on Brazil incident

RIO DE JANEIRO -- A man who helped
translate conversations between Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte, his teammates and
armed security guards at a gas station says a gun wasn’t pointed at them during
the encounter.

Fernando Deluz, a 38-year-old disc
jockey, also said that Americans decided to pay for property they destroyed to
avoid calling police.

But nearly as soon as his story came
out, an American swimmer gave a different account in a detailed statement,
saying two guns were pointed at the athletes as the event unfolded.

The incident has become a defining
story of the games. Brazilian police have said Lochte was lying when he said he
was robbed, and police said instead, the swimmers vandalized a bathroom while
intoxicated.

Lochte apologized on Instagram for not
being “more careful and candid” about how he described the incident,
but maintained a gun was pointed at him by a stranger and that the swimmers
were forced to pay money to leave the gas station.

The International Olympic
Committee was looking at taking disciplinary action against the four swimmers, and
Lochte could be in danger of losing sponsorship deals, CBS News correspondent
Jamie Yuccas reports. Many Brazilians feel as though Lochte hasn’t taken full
responsibility for his actions.

Authorities were planning
to charge Lochte and teammate Jimmy Feigen with providing false information
about a crime, Yuccas reports. Lochte departed Brazil before authorities tried
to seize his passport, and Feigen was only allowed to leave after paying more
than $10,000 to a Brazilian charity.

Deluz said he had stopped at the gas
station around 6 a.m. on Sunday after working a party all night. There,
security guards had confronted the swimmers about a bathroom door they
apparently forced open.

When two swimmers walked off, Deluz
says one of the two security guards put one hand on his gun and pointed at the
ground, telling the men in Portuguese to sit. The other guard stood by but did
nothing, Deluz says.

“There was no aggression.
Pointing a gun at them? Never. There was nothing like that,” Deluz said
during an interview with The Associated Press.

Police have gone back and forth about
whether guns were pulled on the swimmers. Gunnar Bentz​, who returned to the
U.S. on Friday, described two guns being drawn.

“The first security guard held a
badge to me and drew his handgun,” Bentz said.

He said he yelled at two teammates who
were walking away to come back. “Then the second guard drew his weapon and
both guards pointed their guns at us and yelled at us to sit on a nearby
sidewalk.”

Bentz said there was
missing surveillance video to back up the claims, Yuccas reports.

Deluz said he began to translate when
he realized the swimmers did not understand the guards.

“That is when they started
saying, ‘No police. Please, don’t call police!’” said Deluz.

Two days later, upon reading Lochte’s
initial account of a robbery, Deluz says he was surprised to learn that the men
were Olympic swimmers.

“They made a lot of mistakes,” said
Deluz. “But the worst was that they lied about what happened.”